The Island: The Real Story
by bionic4ever
Summary: What really happened to Jaime & Oscar on the Island? Picks up after chapter two of The Island.
1. Chapter 3

**The Island: The Real Story**

(note: Life doesn't always get wrapped up in neat little epilogues; neither does this story. This picks up after Chapter 2 of 'The Island' and continues the story from there.)

Chapter Three

'The Island' - Cell #4 - 4/19/89 - 7:00am

"Sommers! Up and at 'em! We're taking a walk."

Jaime rolled over, stretched and looked up at the two guards standing outside her cell. In addition to a gun in each man's belt, they each held a taser in their hand.

"Go to hell," she snarled at them. She could hear the ominous buzz that told her the tasers were on and ready. "You do whatever you gotta do to me. I'm not going with you." Jaime rolled over on the paper-thin mattress and faced the wall, her back to the guards.

"See, that's where you're wrong," one of them told her. "It's not you we're gonna hurt. Get Goldman out here," he barked to his partner.

"No!" Jaime immediately sat bolt-upright and sprang to her feet. "Leave him alone. I'm coming," she said, conceding defeat. She knew if one of her bionic power sources took a bolt from the taser it would probably kill her, but she couldn't allow them to hurt the man who had never been anything but kind (and, yes, loving) to her.

One guard walked in front of her, leading the way, and the other walked behind, the taser in direct contact with Jaime's back. Oscar sat with his head leaning back against the metal wall, resigned to his own fate but terrified for Jaime. She had gone through resistance training - against hypnosis, interrogation and various ugly forms of persuasion - at the OSI, but he feared for her spirit, her mind and her very life up against the barbarians who now had her in their grasp.

'The Island' - Chris's Apt. - 4/19/89 - 7:30am

The guards took Jaime up two flights of stairs and down a brightly-lit hallway that looked more like an apartment building than a prison. They stopped in front of an open door, roughly shoved her inside and then closed and double-locked the door. _Apartments don't lock from the outside, _she noted to herself.

The person who used to be Chris Williams was seated at a table next to a sunny window. She knew now that some basic part of him had been altered or eliminated. Her Chris would've been ballistic over her rough treatment by the guards. This Chris merely smiled warmly at her.

"Good morning!" He was way too cheerful. "You hungry?" he asked Jaime. "Got all your favorites here: Belgian waffles, two kinds of fresh berries, real whipped cream." Jaime looked longingly at the food for a moment. It was a far cry from the hard roll and water that had been shoved into her cell that morning. "It can really be quite nice here, Jaime," Chris told her. "Every need, every want taken care of. No worries, no danger -"

That did it. "Have you completely lost your mind?" Jaime was furious, and frightened. "Are you even in there anymore? No danger? Was that an imaginary taser I just had jabbing me in the back on the way up here? Toy guns they're carrying? No worries? How about one of my dearest friends in the world locked in a cell, his life threatened if I don't cooperate? I'd break this window and run right now, except they'd still have Oscar!"

"Jaime," Chris said calmly, " you just need to get used to life here. I promise, it's not -"

"**_Shut up_**!" Jaime punctuated this by throwing dishes, food and then the table itself across the room, creating an unbelievable mess and an even worse racket.

The door flew open and the guards were instantly upon her. She was zapped with the taser and, before she could recover from the jolt, injected with the contents of a very large syringe. Chris stood over where she'd fallen to the ground. As Jaime's world began to buck and spin wildly, he simply shook his head.

"Jaime, don't be stupid. It doesn't have to be this way." The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was her former lover, smiling down at her injured, prone body.


	2. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

'The Island' - Cell #3 - 4/25/89 - 2:00pm

Oscar sat wordlessly on the floor of his cell. By his count, Jaime hadn't been returned to her cell in nearly a week. The first night, he'd assumed they were trying some form of brain-washing or indoctrination. That was bad enough; Oscar's heart broke as he thought of what they were likely to be putting her through.

When another 24 hours went by, he thought they'd probably injured her somehow, accidentally or - more likely - on purpose. They could also have been keeping her somewhere else, to manipulate him. The guards who usually cut him very little slack were virtually ignoring him. Now, he had spent the last two days or so with a horrible, gnawing certainty that Jaime was dead.

The guilt Oscar felt was suffocating him. He knew he couldn't have saved her from this place, but he wished with every fiber of his being that he'd taken the risk and told her how he really felt about her. She knew he loved her - like a daughter - but his true feeling were so much stronger. He'd always held back because he had been her boss and he'd felt she belonged with Steve. But Steve had effectively given Jaime up for good when he accepted his new position. The thought that Jaime had died without ever knowing how he felt was simply more than Oscar could bear.

"Goldman! On your feet. They need you upstairs." Oscar continued to stare at nothing in stony silence. "Now! It's about your friend."

Oscar slowly stood up, aware it could be just another manipulation, but his heart was pounding hard and fast. Was Jaime alive? They had no tasers and their guns were not drawn, but Oscar still followed them without a fight, well aware it could all be a trap. Still, he had to know...

'Island' Medical Ward - 4/25/89 - 2:15pm

Oscar followed the guards up to the fifth floor, where a sign read 'Medical'. They led him through a doorway into one of the wards, leaving the door open and unlocked. There were four beds but only one was occupied. Oscar saw her long, blonde hair from the doorway and rushed to her bedside to see if it was really true. It was! The patient in the bed was Jaime. Was she alive?

Her skin was a ghastly shade of greyish-white and her lips nearly blue. She wasn't moving. Her weak, barely perceptible breathing was the only indication that she was still living. Oscar turned toward the guards, angier than he'd ever been in his life. He no longer cared what might happen to him.

"What the hell did you do to her?" Of course, no one answered him, but they didn't attack him either. Two men emerged from a small anteroom: one in a lab coat and the other in a suit and tie. The medical-looking one walked to the bed, glanced at Jaime's still form without actually examining her, and turned to Oscar.

"Mister Goldman, my name is Doctor Peter Tessler, and this is Jonathan Pratt, the head of our little 'indoctrination community.'

No one shook hands. Oscar, with boiled-over fury in his eyes and malice in his heart, drew back and used all the strength he had left to punch Pratt square in the face. The guards moved forward, drawing their guns, but Pratt shook his head. "Leave him alone." He looked at Oscar. "Normally, you'd be shot for that, but we need your assistance to help your friend here. We were initially going to let her die, but her special abilities make her extremely valuable to the government and to us."

"Mister Goldman, what can you tell us about her bionics that might aid us in treating her?" Doctor Tessler asked.

"Medically, not much."

"What about the scientist who made her bionic?" Pratt inquired. "Can you get him here?"

Oscar sighed inwardly. _I'm sorry, Jaime, _he thought. "And let you make him a prisoner too? I don't think so."

"Miss Sommers will die without the appropriate treatment," the doctor told him.

"I'll give you the phone number of my replacement at the OSI. Colonel Austin may be able to help you." Pratt handed him a piece of paper and Oscar wrote down the number.

Pratt looked toward the guards. "You will be returned to your cell while we make the call," he told Oscar.

"No," Oscar said flatly, pulling a chair close to Jaime's bedside. "I will be staying right here."


	3. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

'Island' Medical Ward - 4/26/89 - 12:30am

Oscar refused to leave Jaime's side for the rest of the day and into the night. He listened to the long silence between each weak, labored breath, anxiously willing the next one to bring more life-giving oxygen to her depleted body. Often, he'd hold his own breath until she took another, each time fearing there would be no more.

He wondered what sort of help (if any) Steve was sending. Would he have Rudy call to consult or (God forbid) sent the doctor in person? Or would Steve recognize their captors as the terrorists they truly were, even though they operated within the auspices of the US government? OSI policy was strict and clear: no negotiation or cooperation of any kind with terrorists. Oscar only hoped that, if help was on the way, Jaime would live long to receive it.

The lights in the hallway had been off for several hours when the silence was shattered by the elevator's bell and the ruckus of at least half a dozen voices shouting at once.

"You can't come barging in here in the middle of the night!" Pratt yelled. "This is a government facility!"

"It's a government-sponsored torture chamber!" Steve? Oscar was sure he was hallucinating. This was far too risky for the OSI Director to attend to personally. "_Formerly_ government-sponsored; you are done, closed, shut down - effective immediately. Now, where is she, Pratt?" It was Steve! Oscar bolted to the still-open doorway.

"Steve! She's in here!" Steve had come with his own small army: Jim, Russ, five or six lower-level (but very large) operatives...and **Rudy**. Rudy and Steve were at Jaime's side within seconds. She'd appeared very near death when Oscar had first seen her and had gone steadily downhill since then.

"God - no," Steve whispered. Rudy bent intently over the bed. "Is she...?" Steve couldn't bring himself to say the word 'dead'.

"She's alive," Rudy said urgently. "Barely." He called out into the hallway: "Where are the medics? I need that stretcher - NOW! Tessler, get me 2cc's adreneline." He grabbed the oxygen mask off the wall and placed it over Jaime's face. There was no reaction to either the oxygen or the adreneline, no change in the awful deathly color of her skin, which looked even worse in contrast with the normal flesh-tone of her arm and legs.

The medics arrived and Jaime was bundled onto the stretcher and wheeled into the Medivac chopper for the flight to a real hospital. Steve put a hand on Oscar's shoulder. "C'mon - you're leaving too. I'll drive you to the hospital, and I want you checked over as soon as we get there."

Oscar sighed with relief. "Take care of Jaime first."

Steve maneuvered his friend toward the door. "Plenty of doctors to go around. Let's get out of here."


	4. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Rudy's Complex - DC - 4/26/89 - 6:45am

Steve had been restlessly pacing the hallway for several hours. Oscar sat nearby in a wheelchair, an IV in his arm to treat severe dehydration. His doctor had realized it was futile to try and keep him in a bed. He was as strong-willed as ever and insisted on being, if not with Jaime, at least as close as possible.

"Oscar? You need anything?" Steve asked.

"No thanks."

"Guess I should say any**_one_**," Steve said, pulling up a chair to sit next to his former boss. "Oscar, I know how you feel about Jaime." Oscar lowered his head, saying nothing. Steve went on, very cautiously. "I've known for a long time. To be honest, it worried me when I was with her, even though I knew that, in your position, you could never act on those feelings." Oscar nodded, still at a loss for words. Steve chuckled ironically. "Quite a role reversal we did, huh?"

"Yup. Gotta tell you, Pal, no one was better suited to take over for me. You proved that today."

"No one else is insane enough...but I've known for awhile now that Jaime and I wouldn't be getting back together. Just wasn't meant to be." Steve paused to look at Oscar. "Have you ever told her how you feel about her?"

"Never got the chance. I really couldn't while I was still working. That was why I took early retirement. Then, when I did retire -"

Rudy emerged from the ICU. Two voices asked in perfect stereo "How is she?"

Rudy's face was grim. "She's in bad shape; real bad."

"What did they do to her?" Steve asked softly.

"She's got a pretty bad taser burn on her hip, just above the leg. Some internal damage from the power source but thankfully not a direct hit. That would've killed her instantly. I'm guessing when they sedated her, they didn't take into account that only a certain percentage of her body is actually flesh and blood."

"Overdose," Steve concluded.

"Right. They couldn't treat her because they had no clue about either condition. So they let her lie there like that for...how long, Oscar?"

"Almost a week. Rudy, will she live?" Oscar held his breath, waiting for the answer.

Rudy didn't want to crush his hope, but he couldn't lie, either. "She's in extremely critical condition; her chances are very slim."

"Is she in pain?" Steve asked.

"Jaime's in a deep coma. Probably too far gone to feel any pain. The drugs they gave her are pretty much out of her system, and I've replaced the damaged power source and treated as much radiation damage as was possible. Now - we wait. The rest is up to Jaime, if she's strong enough."

"Can I see her?" Oscar asked.

"Of course." Rudy wheeled Oscar into the ICU cubicle and left him alone with Jaime. He figured there were things Oscar might want to say to her in private.

When Rudy met Steve again in the hallway, he was pacing again but stopped when he saw the doctor. "Rudy, now that Oscar's not here, how is she really?"

Rudy shook his head. "She's dying, Steve. I'm sorry, but it's gonna take a miracle..."

Oscar looked sadly at the woman he had loved for so long without her knowledge. He knew that sometimes comatose patients could hear what was said around them, and he hoped it was the case this time.

"Hi, Babe. It's me. You know, I'd give anything to trade places with you right now. Because I've already lived a full life, and you're entitled to have one, too, and because...I love you. Jaime, I've loved you for a long time and I wish I could've told you before now. You were the reason I took early retirement; before you, there was nothing in my life but work. But we never really got a chance to try. I just wish I could've let you know that. I'm so sorry."

Oscar moved from his wheelchair to the edge of Jaime's bed, leaned down and kissed her gently. When he sat back down, he was astonished to see two hazel eyes looking back at him, and a groggy smile on Jaime's face. "Oscar," she murmured, "I do know. And - I love you too."

Steve and Rudy, although not listening, were looking through the ICU window when Jaime woke up. Steve turned to the doctor. "Well, Rudy, there's your miracle. It's called love."

END


End file.
